


Give & Take Chs. 8 & 9 (Justin's POV)

by kinfic2



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 22:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8227378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinfic2/pseuds/kinfic2
Summary: "What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach." (Cool Hand Luke)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my LJ in 2008  
> 26 chapters

GIVE AND TAKE   _  
_

Ch.8

 _“You can’t sleep, you can’t eat. There’s no doubt, you’re in deep._  
_Your throat is tight. You can’t breathe. Another kiss is all you need.”_ _©R. Palmer_

  
        Maybe Brian was right. Maybe I do need to take off the rose-colored glasses and grow up, see things or people as they are—or aren’t. Although, if we weren't in such bad shape, I would have laughed at his holier-than-thou tirade. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

        Mom’s 'words to live by' fit almost every situation. That phrase definitely does. Brian lecturing _me_ about growing up? I don’t think so. Our chronological age difference means nothing. When I’m thirty, he’ll be forty-two. Big deal! I keep telling him I’m the most mature person he knows. I didn’t pull the 1500 SAT score out of my ass.  
  
        It's not the first time he’s brought up the age thing. The subject has a tendency to surface after a night of too much booze and drugs, when he's either morbidly maudlin or itching for a fight. During one of our recent activities, the oh-so-pleasant snarkfest, I said _he_ was the one who needed to grow up. My comment didn’t go over well. Does he honestly think I'd leave him for someone younger? Okay, not a great example, but Ethan had nothing to do with age. He had to do with issues I thought we’d resolved this time around.  
  
        We’ve been living in the loft like two strangers, going about our business independent of the other—some of it because of his determination to run himself into an early grave with the Dynamics account, some of it because of _us._ It’s probably better this way. We'd wind up in an argument, and I don’t know if I could survive another round. The sparring matches are too exhausting. They exacerbate my insecurities and neuroses about us. I'd hoped this time we could get on the same page, even think about a future. I’m not so sure now. I’m not sure about anything anymore. And it shows. I’m impatient and irritable, and my sarcasm rivals Brian’s. Every day I withdraw a little more, and I don’t like it. I’m scared. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.  
  
                                      _“I haven’t felt this way I feel since many a year ago._ _And in those years and lifetimes past,_  
                                    _though the love has always been,_ _I search to find an answer here_ _so I can truly win.”_ _©L.Buckingham_

       One of the unfortunate differences between us is that I’m the one who usually messes up in the ways that matter. After a couple of weeks trying to be understanding _,_ trying not to fuck up, I went to Babylon by myself on the rare night when he wasn’t home and yeah, that was definite sarcasm.  
  
       Thanking the hypothetical gay gods that none of our friends were there, I nursed a beer. I wasn’t in the mood to answer their questions or see their sly looks, particularly from a certain Mr. Novotny. Now that he has Ben, you'd think he’d be over his jealousy but he's not. I don’t know if he ever will be.  
  
        In my warped alternate universe fantasies, Brian and Michael should be together. Both of them are such a contradiction. Each claims he wants the other to be happy and yet when he is, the other is unhappy. Christ, maybe _they_ should go to couples' counseling.  
  
        My cell phone buzzed on the bar but I ignored it. I was on my second beer, debating whether or not to go home, when wing-like flutters swooped into my stomach. The hand on my back seared through my shirt to my bones. For a split second I thought it was Brian, but I remembered just as quickly that he'd never ditch a Dynamics meeting early, especially for me. That left one other person. Even though I don’t remember much about that night, I _do_ remember him. How could I fucking forget?  
                 
_“When I see him, I feel him. There’s an intenseness in him in his eyes._ _He wants me to be with him. He wants me now.”_ _© S.Nicks_

         I slowly turned and the pressure rose inside like a pot of water on the verge of boiling over. He was leaning against the bar nonchalantly. Only he wasn’t nonchalant. I spent too much time trying to decipher Brian’s every move and look, trying to figure out what he meant when he said something totally opposite. There was no doubt this guy wasn't relaxed. Laid-back maybe _,_ but definitely not relaxed. He gave off more of a focused and determined vibe, focused and determined to get what he wanted—me. I shivered as his index finger drew small circles on my upper arm. Nope, no doubt at all.  
  
       “Cold?”  
  
       “No, I, uh....”  
  
       “Hot?”  
  
        Oh, he was good. He was so good that even though I knew what he was doing, I had no desire to leave. He played me like an unsuspecting fish, luring me with the bait of his sultry voice, piercing eyes and worse, muddled memories of a steamy encounter in the back room. The question was did I care?  
  
                   _“What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way._ _What a wicked thing to do. Strange what desire makes foolish people do.” ©_ _C.Isaak_  
  
         In a matter-of-fact voice, he said, “Just so we understand each other, I’m not playing you. Yes, I want you. I want to have you. But nothing more.”  
  
         Well, fuck me! Apparently he could read minds as well. It's not as if I expected or wanted more. I'd get what I needed physically _because Brian was never fucking home_ and this guy would get another notch on his belt.  
  
         Maybe Brian was the one who needed a wake-up call. Hot guys, _younger_ guys will always try to replace him, to dethrone him. The whole circle of life crap. Christ, I sound like a fucking Disney movie! I can’t imagine his reaction when it does happen. If anything would push him into therapy, that would. How ironic if his own narcissism finally goaded him to see a shrink instead of his other screwed-up issues _._  
  
         Mr. Stud Muffin gestured toward the phone. “Someone’s trying to reach you.”  
  
         I didn't look at the number. “I’m going AWOL tonight.”  
  
         His eyes traveled to the flashing display again. “Friend?”  
  
        “I don’t know.”  
  
        “Maybe you should look. It could be important.”  
  
         I stared at the sweaty bodies on the dance floor and couldn't stop a sigh. “I don’t think so.” More to myself than to him, I said, “There are a lot of reasons why this shouldn’t happen.” I truly believed that. All I ever wanted or needed was Brian. He was enough, more than enough. I wish he felt the same way about me.  
  
         He dropped his hand. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
         Warning bells clanged. “Sure.”  
  
        “Is one of the reasons that you’re not attracted me?”  
  
         I blew out a whoosh of air. Yeah, right. As if. “No, it's not.”  
  
         His lips twitched. “Well, I suppose that's the most important one. Any others? Not that I don’t already know them.” He finished his beer and motioned for another round.  
  
        “Plying me with liquor so I’ll succumb to your charms?”  
  
         He shook his head and straggly strands of hair fell over one eye. “You’ve only had two and—”  
  
        “You’ve been watching me?” I couldn't believe it.  
  
        “Let’s say it was impossible not to.” He moved in front of me and placed his hands on the bar, one on each side. The position was shrewdly effective with its sense of confinement. The location of his foot between my legs seemed deceptively accidental. It wasn’t. The slightest movement by either of us inflamed my cock.  
  
         He leaned closer. “And to give you the rest of my answer. I don't have to ply you with liquor. I know what you want.”  
  
         Skin prickly, jeans too tight. Yeah, I knew what I wanted also.  
  
         He stared at me like a bug under a microscope. “If you don’t want to do this, say so,” he said bluntly. “Don’t bullshit me and don’t waste my time playing coy. I’m not going to chase you.” He finished his drink and murmured in my ear, “You want me as much as I want you. Fuck Kinney! His time is over.”  
  
         Oblivious to the hungry looks thrown at him, he swaggered away. “I’ll be in the back room when you decide.” Christ, if he fucked the way he walked.  
  
         So that was it. The hand had been dealt, and the cards were on the table. It was up to me. I motioned to Greg the bartender for another beer, downed it in record time and signaled for another. “What?”  
  
        “Nothing! Here’s your _fifth_ beer.”  
  
         Fuck! Was everyone keeping tabs on how much I drank? Who the hell was he to count how— Shit! It would be just like Brian to— I threw him a death glare, chugged the liquid, and slammed the glass down. “Thanks!”  
  
        “That’s what I’m here for!”  
  
        “Yeah, I bet!” I mumbled as I walked away.  
  
        “Justin!”  
  
         I whirled around, annoyed that he would dare interfere with my personal game of _RISK_.  
  
_“It’s the end of the world as we know it.”_ _©REM_  
  
        “You forgot this.” He dangled my cell phone. Talk about Freudian missteps. I hurried back, certain my guilty conscience was as obvious as a scarlet letter on my chest.  
  
        “Thanks.” I couldn’t leave fast enough.  
  
        “No problem!”  
  
         The phone vibrated in my hand, sending pulses of blame to my conscience and pulses of caution to my brain. I turned it off as my legs guided me with their own GPS. Temptation can be an insidious monster. It prowls and trawls its way into your psyche, a predator that inhales common sense and rational thought for breakfast and exhales unquenchable need and reckless behavior for dinner. Thinking becomes impossible. You're a shameless rubber band of sensation, stretched taut, desperately needing to be snapped and released. And you hate yourself for it.  
  
         I knew. God, _I knew_ I should head the other way, out the front door, to the loft....  
  
                                                    **Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.** [No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.]  

                                                                                                           * * * *

                                                                                                            Ch.9

 **“All a man can betray is his conscious.”** _©J.Conrad_         

        Daydreaming can be a successful diversion when you don't want to admit that what you’re about to do will change your life. I focused on this mental state of denial, hoping it could wash away the grime of the here and now as my body steered me toward an uncertain future. The last time I visited the back room alone was after I broke up with Ethan. It's always been Brian and me—together. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy an occasional suck and fuck as much as the next guy, but it isn't how I want to live.  
  
**Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.** [All things are changed and we with them. ]  
  
         A phantom hand reached out from the shadows and shoved me against the wall. There was doubt I was expected. I had tacitly accepted his invitation at the bar. He knew it and so did I. The ambush jolted me back to reality _—_ to the seedy, anonymous darkness of Pittsburgh's version of Sodom and Gomorrah with its stink of stale piss and nameless, half-naked writhing bodies. Soon I would be one of them. Because I wanted this. I needed this. And I hated myself for this.  
  
        “I’m glad you decided to come. No pun intended, of course.” He smelled of cologne, of man, and sex. I'd remember the scent for a long time.  
  
         Brian once said, “It’s too late now. There’s no turning back.” How ironic those words would return to haunt me and not in a positive or life-affirming way.  
  
         My brain screamed to stop playing Russian Roulette with my life, but when a finger traced my lips and a voice whispered “very glad,” the game was over, the outcome decided. And I didn’t know if I had won or lost.  
                                                 
**Jacta alea est.** [The die is cast.]  
  
         His arousal surged through me like pin pricks of electric current, tingling my scalp and standing my hair on end with static. What was it about this guy that made me lose all ability to think? Did I want _him_ or did I want to be wanted, to be needed? I trembled as goosebumps puckered my flesh and wouldn't allow my nagging conscience to squelch the excitement.  
  
         He spun me around and positioned my arms by my head. “Don't move them.” The unforgiving cement scratched my cheek, but that was okay. I didn’t deserve to be forgiven for what I was about to do.  
  
         He mapped my body with feathery touches on my waist and arms, hips and thighs. One hand pressed me against the wall and the other snaked to my front. Even in a room of horny grunting men, the opening of my zipper thundered, every click and clack a blaring affirmation of blame, a ringing accusation of me. I wanted to die. But I needed to fuck.  
  
         My jeans dropped to the floor and I let out a grateful moan. He laughed in amusement. I groaned in aggravation. With his palms on my ass, his fingers kneaded my dampened flesh. Examining? Appreciating? I had no idea.  
  
         He nudged my legs apart with his own, urging me to spread myself wider, to expose myself even more as his hands traveled up and down my sweaty crack. One finger lingered, circling until it reached its destination. In and out. In and out. The best and worst kind of exquisite torment. As my knifelike need for release intensified, it cruelly withdrew. “No!”  
  
         He laughed. How fucking embarrassing! I didn't just say the word in my head, I said it out loud. I really am pathetic.  
  
        “Don’t worry, Taylor. I wouldn’t do that to you—or me.”  
  
         I could have cried when two probing fingers wormed their way inside, but they avoided the one spot where I needed them most. I tried wriggling, but all I received for my effort was an unyielding pressure that pinned me against the wall. About to shatter into a million pieces, I barely heard the rip of the condom wrapper or felt the cold lube. The loss of his fingers left me cold and alone. I needed the physical contact to ignore the common sense that threatened to intrude.  
  
         His hand found its way under my shirt, rubbing and pinching. He scraped his nails over my painful nubs and pressed his dick against my ass. “The last time you said 'fuck me,’ you were tweaked. I want to hear you say it now so you’ll remember that you asked me to fuck you, begged me to fuck you.”  
  
**Id quod nostrum est, sine facto nostro ad alium transferi non potest.**  
                                                           [What belongs to us cannot be transferred to another without our consent.]  
  
         Christ! It was so hard and thick. “Please!”  
  
        “Please what, Taylor?” He edged in.  
  
         I pushed back but he held my hips in an iron grip, letting me know that he was the one in control. He was driving me fucking crazy!  
  
        “Taylor?” He shifted. It wasn't enough.  
  
         The soft brush of his hair and the tickle of his breath on my neck sent me into overdrive. “Fuck me!”  
  
        “Say it! Say the whole fucking thing!” He inched in a little more.  
  
         I squeezed my eyes shut. And I begged. “Please fuck me!”  
  
         His answer was a swift and ruthless slide that forced the air out of my lungs. “Oh fuck!”  
  
_“The candle is lit at the moment of truth, from the point of entry, at the point of surrender, anything can happen."_ _©Peart,Lee,Lifeson_  
  
         I fumbled for my cock, but he gave a powerful push and the sheer brute strength immobilized me. He grabbed my wrist _._ _“_ No! You're going to come only from my dick in your ass.”  
  
         He hammered me without mercy _._ This was what I wanted. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to matter, if only for a few minutes, if only to a stranger in the backroom of Babylon.  
  
**“Affairs are not really about sex, but about pain and fear and the desire to feel alive."** _©E.Brown_  
  
         I couldn't take in enough air, each breath more ragged than the last until the firestorm inside exploded, and I spurted stream after stream. One final thrust and he followed, pulsing heat into the condom.  
  
         Light-headed, I slumped against the wall, supporting my limp body with a hand pressed into my own semen. I stared at the splashes, _my_ splashes, fascinated by the web of spiderlike veins in each viscous blob as they dripped and blended with the other random streaks into a larger design of meaningless nothingness.  
  
         I don't remember how long we stood, waiting for the heat to cool, for the accelerated breaths to slow, for the normalcy in my life now forever gone to return. I bent down to pick up my pooled jeans. When I straightened, the room tilted one way and I tilted in the opposite direction. His arm shot out, giving me time to right my physical world.  
  
        “You okay?” Those damn eyes again.  
  
         Who the fuck was he to act concerned? I nodded and squirmed out of his grasp. Out. I had to get out. Through sheer will power, I forced my legs to move.  
  
        “Taylor!”  
  
         I didn't want to stop, didn't want to look, but the pull was too strong. He hadn't wasted any time. Our eyes locked as his cock disappeared into one of the nameless mouths. With more than a hint of smugness, he said, “Any time you want a repeat performance let me know. That was just a ‘get to know you’ fuck.”  
     
         God, his ego. He reminded me so much of—  
  
         I staggered out of Babylon without looking back.  
  
                                                               _"Last thing I remember, I was running for the door._  
_And I was thinking to myself, 'this could be heaven or this could be hell.'_  
                                                  _I had to find the passage back to the place I was before.”_ _©_ _Frey,Henley,Felder_                                                                         

                                                                                                      * * * *

CONTINUED HERE: _<http://archiveofourown.org/works/8572036>_


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